


the space between the stars

by owlinaminor



Series: thorbruce week 2k18 [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Space Flight, ThorBruce Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 14:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15583983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: He was supposed to be a research scientist.  Publish a few papers, mentor a few students.  Maybe figure out the secrets of gamma radiation, maybe just lay the groundwork for someone else to do it.  He never wanted to join NASA, or colonize new worlds, or help manage an alien civilization.  He’s not qualified for any of this – god knows he doesn’t have any of the prerequisites.But then he turns away from the window, and he looks at Thor.





	the space between the stars

**Author's Note:**

> for thorbruce week day five: stars.
> 
> honestly all the prompts for this week have been _so good,_ i'm really enjoying playing with them. this one is set more in the future, after new asgard has been up and running for a few decades.
> 
> title is from the quote in the middle of [interstellar space](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TImASOy07w) by adam young, which he pulled from [ed stone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ddt8xnnGGA).

 

Bruce wakes up, and the ship is dark.

This is his least favorite part of it, every time – the disorientation.  The sensation that the mattress beneath him should be larger, or harder, or not a mattress at all but rocks and dirt and shards of glass, the middle of the ocean or the point of someone’s sword.  Here he is, on a bed where he’s woken hundreds of times – that he designed for himself – and his back still tingles, his stomach still lurches, as though at any moment he could lose his balance and topple off a cliff.

Bruce lies still for a long minute.  He counts down from one hundred.  He runs across the first three rows of the periodic table.  He runs through the derivation for centripetal force.  He catalogues all the emails he will need to write once he’s back on earth tomorrow.

His stomach twitches.  This is his other least favorite part of it – Hulk always goes out hungry.

Bruce feels around for the light switch on the wall above his bunk.  It turns on a low LED, tinted purple, just bright enough for him to locate a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, soft and blue with a faded mock Starfleet logo in the corner.  When he raises his arms to pull the shirt on, his shoulder aches.

Bruce can’t find any shoes, just one ripped ankle sock and a spare lace, so he goes barefoot through the narrow hallway and into the main part of the ship.  It’s dark out here, too – they must’ve cut down to emergency lights to save power.  Hopefully they kept the fridge at full capacity, though.  Bruce put a thermos of iced coffee in there earlier, and it would not be as satisfying lukewarm.

_Hulk wants Doritos,_ the back of his mind rumbles.

_Valkyrie probably ate them all,_ Bruce replies.  _Anyway, we need something healthier.  With more protein._

Hulk mutters in reluctant agreement, then retreats.  He’s tired.  Usually Bruce doesn’t come back until they’ve already returned to New Asgard.

He finds his way up to the cockpit, stepping around abandoned blasters and pieces of tech.  Thor is up front in the pilot’s seat while Valkyrie and Loki are on the lower, couch-like seat in the back.  They’re both dozing, Valkyrie lounging with both arms splayed out and Loki leaning against her shoulder, his dark hair forming a curtain over his lean face.  They probably shouldn’t bring him on these missions, honestly – he’s only, like, twelve in terms of skills and maturity – but when they tried leaving him behind, he got half the ministers to declare war on the concept of broccoli, so now he’s part of the team.

Bruce checks the fridge, hidden behind a panel at the back of the room.  It’s still blissfully cold, and his thermos is untouched.  He grabs that, a bag of baby carrots, and a leftover chicken sandwich, leaving the pint of ice cream (Valkyrie’s) and the faintly glowing, orange liquor (also Valkyries).

Then, need for food sated, he tiptoes past the sleeping beauties and slips into the seat beside Thor.  The leather sinks slightly beneath his weight.

“Hey,” he says.

Thor turns – and Bruce will never be used to this, not really – the way Thor’s whole face lights up, wrinkles smoothing and eyes shining, when their gazes meet.

“You’re back.”

“Yeah, I guess the big guy was really tired out by this one.”

Thor returns his attention to the controls, adjusts their course out of the path of an oncoming asteroid.  Bruce doesn’t recognize the view on the other side of the huge glass panes, the stars and planets flickering past like points of light on a faraway computer screen.

“It was a harder one,” Thor admits.  “We had to use force.  I hate it when we have to use force.”

“But we got it, right?” Bruce asks.

Thor frowns at him.

“Sorry, _how_ did we get it?”

“Trial by combat,” Thor explains.  “You fought their top general.  You put her in a headlock and had to keep her there for half an hour while we negotiated the terms of the treaty.  It was quite amusing, actually,” Thor adds, smirking at the memory.  “Twenty minutes in, her skin started turning blue.”

Bruce rolls his shoulders, stretching the tired muscles.  “Well, that explains the fatigue.  And the sore shoulders.”

“You should ice that,” Thor says.  “There are packs in the first aid kit.”

“After I eat.”  Bruce opens the top of his thermos and takes a long swig of iced coffee.  It burns going down – sets his lungs on fire and sends him into a coughing fit.  He holds up the thermos, frowning – it doesn’t seem to be damaged, but now that he thinks about it, it _is_ a bit heavier than it was this morning.

“Valkyrie spiked this, didn’t she?”

Thor laughs.  And it’s hard to be angry when he’s laughing like this, huge guffaws that shake his whole body, the fatigue of decades slipping away.

“She’ll be sorry she missed this,” he says.  “Your face…”

“It’s fine,” Bruce replies.  He considers the thermos again, then shrugs and takes another drink.  (He needs to get his alcohol tolerance on a more even level with the other two, anyway.)  “I’ll just replace her conditioner with isopropyl alcohol when we get back.”

Thor chuckles at that.  And then for a few minutes, the ship is silent, save for the rumbling of the engine and the crunch of carrot separation, as Bruce steadily works his way through the bag.

“Where are we right now?” he asks, once he’s swallowed the last bite.

Thor checks the display.  “In the fourth quadrant, heading northeast over the Rigel system.”

Bruce nods, pretending he knows where that is.  He watches space go by outside the windows.  It’s funny – in the decades since building New Asgard, he’s been on hundreds, maybe even thousands, of missions like this.  He’s been to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, to planets of shining cities, planets of sweeping deserts, planets of dense forests, and planets just working up from microbes in a lake.  He’s helped broker treaties, investigate possible new allies, save civilizations from themselves.

And yet sometimes, looking out a window like this – watching the flow of space, an ocean of lights streaming past neverending – he gets vertigo.  He was supposed to be a research scientist.  Publish a few papers, mentor a few students.  Maybe figure out the secrets of gamma radiation, maybe just lay the groundwork for someone else to do it.  He never wanted to join NASA, or colonize new worlds, or help manage an alien civilization.  He’s not qualified for any of this – god knows he doesn’t have any of the prerequisites.

But then he turns away from the window, and he looks at Thor.  Illuminated like this in emergency lights and reflections of stars, Thor’s features are hazy, his lines blurred.  He could be someone’s shadow, or a figure in a mythology book, ink smudged around the edges.  And yet he is more solid than the steel floor of this spaceship, more solid than the axe propped up against a cabinet somewhere behind them, more solid than the core of the earth.

Thor never wears a crown.  He wears the love of his people, in the stitches of his cape and the plates of his armor.  And he wears Bruce’s heart, inscribed in the arteries inside his chest.

Bruce could never get vertigo, looking at him.

Thor turns, meets Bruce’s gaze.

“We’ll be home in a few more hours,” he says.

“Actually,” Bruce replies, smiling at him, “I already am.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/owlinaminor)! and if you're curious as to what i listen to while planning and writing these fics, you can find my playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1292460687/playlist/3vdo1kCA014Iy3KzMmM1fl?si=SHyBUwkWQ9eFnxkGsBqMBg).


End file.
